Cover the mirror
Forget what they told you
Forget what it means

Cover the madness
Cover the fear
No one will ever
Know you were here

A figure in the hallway light
Returning like a ghost
Something that was left behind
Something in a child's mind
"Bury My Lovely" by October Project


Michiru had been very young when she saw Death in the mirror.

She'd been sitting at her vanity, brushing out her long, teal hair with the silver antique brush her grandmother had given her before she went away forever. She was humming a little tune, kicking her legs up and down, up and down against her chair.

She thought of her grandmother fondly, remembering how they'd all driven all the way to her house by the sea to visit her. It wasn't Michiru's birthday, but she still received a present. Her grandmother had handed her the brush, gone pale, and coughed. The adults ushered her out. Then her father came out and told her that her grandmother wouldn't be coming back.

Michiru sighed, wondering why grandmother had to go and why she couldn't visit anymore. No one would tell her why when she asked. Her father would get very distant, and her mother would tell her that she'd understand when she was older.

Then Michiru looked up and saw Death in the mirror.

She shrieked, throwing the brush at the glass, cracking it. Death vanished from the mirror, but she could still see Him. Skin rotting and falling off of His body, exposing bone. Robes woven of smoke and terror, grey as ash. Cold, black eyes that burned her, marking her for some great design.

He'd had his hand wrapped around her grandmother's throat.

That's when Michiru realized why her grandmother was never coming back.

Her parents found her hiding under the bed, soaked with urine. They didn't scold her about the mirror.

They'd taken her to a psychologist the next day. He had a large mirror in his office, but he covered it with his coat.

The doctor made her talk about her grandmother, the mirror, and asked her what she'd seen. Michiru hadn't told him. She'd just stared at the trench coat hanging on the mirror.

The doctor had gone out into the waiting room to talk to her parents. Michiru sat in the chair and stared at the covered mirror, breathing.

Then the coat slipped off the glass.

Death was in the mirror again. This time He had a baby in His hands. He had hair like hers. Michiru remembered that her mother had gained weight until she collapsed in the bathroom. She'd gone to the hospital and come back thin again. They never told her, but once she'd heard her mother cry about 'the baby.'

The baby was limp, placid, just as her grandmother had been. Death curled His fingers around the baby's head and twisted. He twisted it round and round like a bottle cap until it came right off.

Then Death pointed at her, beckoning to her.

Michiru screamed, begging for mommy and daddy and the doctor to come back. They did, and Death stayed right where He was. She buried her face in her father's shirt, begging him to make Him go away. Please, please. Make Him go away.

They hadn't seen anything in the mirror.

They'd had her institutionalized.

Michiru saw Death in every reflective surface. Sometimes He had someone she had known; other times He was alone, calling for her. More often than not, He was with another girl. Her skin was pale, her eyes were purple, and she was alive.

Michiru knew that this girl was not dead.

She was just supposed to be dead.

And Michiru was supposed to correct that.

Michiru hid within the white walls of her institution, curled up in a corner, rocking back and forth and trying to rid the stench of Death from her mind. But no matter what she did, Death would always find her. And He'd be with that girl, unable to touch her, unable to fix His own mistake.

Michiru saw His promise in the smoke.

'If you kill her, I will leave you.'

Michiru kept hiding.